


Merope Hid Her Face For Shame

by AtalantaPendragonne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dumbledore is an unreliable narrator, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtalantaPendragonne/pseuds/AtalantaPendragonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate history of Merope Gaunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "He That Tears A Heart To Fringe"

Who was there had seen us  
Wouldn't bid him run?  
Heavy lay between us  
All our sires had done.  
-Dorothy Parker, "The Dark Girl's Rhyme"

"Creepy little thing. Probably should be hauling her off to St. Mungo's. Clearly not right in the head."

 

They probably didn't think she'd heard them, or was in any shape to make out what they were saying. When the men the Ministry sent had shown up, she'd barely been conscious, aware only of Father's hands at her throat and Morfin laughing and hissing encouragement. _Fool_ , she'd thought blurrily, _You'll get stuck with the cooking when I'm gone, and the cleaning too._

 

She hadn't had much chance to make sense of the chaos that erupted next. Certainly, she couldn't recall the curses being shouted as she dragged herself under the table. Outsiders. Outsiders and shouting. There had been outsiders and shouting when Mother had died, but she didn't remember much of that either.

 

But Merope was good at making herself small, at avoiding notice. It was only because the mediwizard the man from the Ministry had brought had insisted that they'd looked for her at all, and then only to give her a cursory once-over to be sure she wasn't seriously injured, and to say she'd be getting an owl in a few days with the results of the hearings.

 

Without Morfin trapping game for the table, there was only the scrubby garden behind the cottage to turn to for food; that, and the endless jars of pickles and preserves gathering dust on the shelves. She knew how to trap rabbits with a snare, but that was time-consuming. She'd never mastered just stunning them with a wave of her wand. She'd barely mastered doing anything with a wave of her wand; things happened around her, yes, she could make things happen, but her control was scarcely better than an untrained child's. "You need to cast with your mind, not your heart," one exasperated teacher had told her, before Father had withdrawn her from Hogwarts in disgust.

 

But it took no fine wandwork to chop vegetables, or boil them. And reading was never a strength of hers, but 'six months in Azkaban' was clear enough. 'Three years in Azkaban' was clear enough. She had six months to figure something out, but what?

 

"Redecorating?"

 

Merope looked up in alarm. She'd been on her own for a week and a half, and not heard a voice in all that time save the snakes who'd agreed to keep her garden free of rodents if she'd be careful where she put her hoe.

 

It was Tom-from-the-manor-house. Alone. Speaking to her. Smiling, even.

 

"I. I'm not sure I know what you mean."

 

He pointed at the door, which she'd scrubbed clean.

 

"Oh! My brother..." She coloured, shaking her head. "He'll be away for a bit."Not long enough."I didn't like..."

 

"Well, who would, really?" His smile was impossible to look away from. "I'd heard a rumour, actually, that your father and brother had vanished. I couldn't bear to think of a little thing like you all on her own."

 

Blushing again, she knelt to pull some weeds. He sat on a rock that had once been part of a wall surrounding the cottage, before it had fallen into disrepair. "He'll... my father... he'll be back in a few months."

 

"You'll forgive me if I observe that you don't sound pleased at the thought."

 

She kept her head bent, hands laid flat on the newly-turned earth. "I... no." The words stuck in her throat; it was a struggle to speak them. "I want. I want to be gone by then."

 

The hand under her chin, tilting up her face, was entirely unexpected, and if there was something coldly appraising in his gaze, all she noticed was that he was looking at her. Tom was looking at her, and smiling. "It so happens I've a bit of travel planned myself," he said merrily. "I'm in no rush to marry the girl next door, no matter how rich her father is, and so I'm off to London. It seems to me that you might be the better for a bit of adventure yourself."

 

"Adventure?" Merope repeated numbly.

 

"London. Come with me, it'll be all the fresher through your eyes."

 

How could the word 'no' even take shape in her thoughts, with an offer like that?

 

 

He that tears a heart to fringe  
Hates the noise of sobbing.  
Dorothy Parker, "The Second Oldest Story"

 

Even if Merope had the slightest idea what to expect, London wasn't it. They'd moved into a little townhouse ("A proper home for you, with a proper modern kitchen, everything will be so much easier!") and he'd left her there, tucked away, cooking and cleaning and waiting for him to come home. Some nights, he didn't. Some nights he did, but stumbling of drink and smelling of what she was sure was perfume.

 

But there were enough nights where he held her close, and whispered all the things he knew she wanted to hear. Nights that were enough to make her convince herself she felt loved.

 

And it wasn't as if she actually wanted to go out. The city was loud and confusing. Even Diagon Alley, on the rare occasions she'd ventured that far alone, was unfamiliar and crowded. Better to stay home. Tommy brought her presents sometimes... dresses, stockings, oddly-shaped shoes that pinched her feet, but he seemed to like the way they looked.

 

There were guests, too. Tommy's friends were writers, poets, musicians, painters, sculptors, and a flock of hangers-on telling them what geniuses they were. She poured wine for them and their girlfriends (never wives; Tommy's friends seemed to think marriage was old-fashioned and more than a little silly, not to mention bourgeois. Merope didn't know what bourgeois meant, but from the way they said it, it wasn't anything good). She served meals and hovered on the fringes of conversations she rarely understood. A balding, bespectacled man whose name she was never able to remember called her 'Tommy's little Fantine', which everyone but his girlfriend thought was very clever.

 

She'd cornered her alone, once, the balding man's girlfriend.

 

"I don't know why you put up with it." She'd been drinking rather a lot, and her words were slurred. "You're as bad as Rose, thinking Garry's going to leave his wife for her. Why do you let him treat you this way?"

 

"What way?" Merope blinked at her, confused. Tommy never yelled at her, never threatened her. There was always enough to eat, and she didn't have to make his clothes, or hers either.

 

The balding man's girlfriend patted Merope's cheek, her expression pitying (if a little glazed). "Like a maid with bedroom duties, little Fantine. I don't know where he found you, but it must have been dreadful if you're happy with this."

 

"What do you mean, 'happy with this'?" Merope protested. "Tommy loves me."

 

"No, little Fantine. You love him. Not the same thing at all. And Heaven help you when he tires of you."

 

It was two weeks later that Merope realized she was expecting.

 

Tommy had been sweet at first, when she'd come to him, worried to the point of tears. He'd kissed her and held her close. "Don't be worried, pet, not over a silly thing like this. I know a doctor."

 

"Doctor?" She blinked at him, uncomprehending. "But I'm not sick. I'm going to... we're going to..."

 

He grabbed her by the arms, hard, and shook her. She gasped, more from shock than pain. "We're going to the doctor, and get this little mess taken care of, and never speak of it again, do you hear me?"

 

"Tommy, it's our baby..."

 

He slapped her then, and she gaped at him, trying to convince herself that none of this was happening. "Thought you'd trap me like this, you peasant cow? Probably not even mine, you filthy little degenerate..."

 

He grabbed her by the hair, and raised his fist, and she screamed. But before the blow could land, she felt a surge of power well up in her, the sort that always happened before she made something happen. Something uncontrolled, like the magic of an untrained child.

 

Tommy flew across the room as if struck by a giant, hitting the opposite wall hard enough to knock down the photographs hanging there. He slid to the floor, motionless. Merope stared, horrified, then turned and fled.


	2. "And Eve Was Weak"

Come here, my dear  
Let's see this trinket you wear  
This bagatelle...  
-Schönberg & Boublil, Les Miserables

 

She didn't have any money, had run with only the clothes on her back, but Tommy... Tommy had liked her to look pretty. Liked to give her pretty things to keep her from asking questions.

For once his condescension had been useful. When she reached the marginally more familiar environs of Diagon Alley, the pearls, the bracelets, the earrings... even the flashy ring he'd claimed meant they were engaged, one night when he was especially drunk... it was easy enough to convert them into enough money to get herself a bed, and something to eat, for a while at least.

She didn't let herself think about what she'd do when the money ran out.

Another worry was that her father would come looking for her when he got out of Azkaban. She'd given the innkeeper a false name... well. It was her mother's mother's name, surely she'd earned that much inheritance? Her father never mentioned her, it seemed likely to Merope that if he'd ever known it, he'd put her name out of his head. He rarely bothered to remember things that he didn't think he could benefit from.

She'd only met Melpomene Clutterbuck twice, and only the second was clear enough to remember. Merope had been nine, and her grandmother had been on her deathbed.

"Marry out, girl," she'd whispered, with all the vehemence she could muster. "Told Marpessa to marry out like I did, and look what she's come to. That wretched son-in-law of mine is going to wear her out trying to get more sons to carry on the bloody family name. Hate to think what he's planning for you, girl. You marry out soon's you can, even if that means running off at fifteen with the first boy from school who'll have you."

 

She hadn't really understood, then. And when she was fifteen she'd been pulled out of school, put to work keeping the house in order after her mother's death. She'd begun to understand a little by then.

And she had run off with the first boy who'd have her after all, and even if they weren't quite married, it was as 'out' as could be, and look where that had gotten her. The sum the jewelry had fetched had seemed staggering, but it was running out so fast, and she was realising she didn't really know what anything cost. Soon she wouldn't even be able to pay for the ragged little room she was renting, and then what would she do? Get a job? Most places used a basic charm, checking to see that everything you put on the application was true. The ones that didn't were... dodgy. Like this grimy rented room was dodgy. Like her whole situation was dodgy.

And who would hire her, now that she was showing? She seemed to be sick most of the time, dizzy and having trouble keeping down food... was this what it had been like for her mother, through all those failed attempts to produce more sons to carry on the Gaunt name?

Only one thing left to sell. One thing she didn't want anyway. The locket had been heavy around her neck ever since coming to London, and all the more so since she'd gone staggering down the street in the middle of the night.

It was all that was left of who she was, and she wanted nothing more than to be rid of it, and she was terrified to let it out of her sight. She hadn't taken it off since her mother died.

 

She sat on the hard little bed, staring into space, shuddering at the feeling of the baby squirming inside her. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

 

Grant her the right to whisper to her son  
The foolish names one dare not call a king.  
-Dorothy Parker, "Prayer for a New Mother"

 

She'd been cheated outrageously on the locket, Merope knew, and again on the Galleons-to-Muggle-currency exchange; they could tell, the goblins could, when you weren't in a position to complain. But she needed to go back to Muggle London for this. Her father was surely out of Azkaban by now, and calling herself 'Melpomene Clutterbuck' wouldn't be enough to stay hidden if he were to come after her in earnest. Getting rid of the locket was a start, and she'd been furious at herself and shaking with fear when she'd realized how easily she could have been found that way.

No, she needed to be where he wouldn't look for her. Which meant St. Mungo's was out.

She'd been able to get a warm coat, and boots. She'd tried to find a room at a boardinghouse, but they all took one look at her big belly and ringless left hand, and their eyes hardened. One door had literally been slammed in her face. Finally she'd found a room to rent, in a house so grim and ill-heated she didn't want to spend any more time there than necessary. She'd taken to spending her days sitting in the cheapest cafés she could find, keeping herself warm with endless cups of coffee and bowls of soup.

She was skittish enough that the hand on her shoulder almost made her scream. But when she glanced up warily, it was only a middle-aged woman with a motherly smile. She set a cup of tea down in front of Merope and laid a hand on the table.

"You've been here rather a lot lately," she said with a trace of an accent Merope couldn't place. "Family show you the door, did they?"

Merope bit her lip. "I. I suppose you could put it that way."

"You'll want to go here. They'll look after you, truly." She slid a card across the table.

It was a plain white card with an address and a name: St. Thaïs Refuge.

 

And God made Eve from the rib of Adam,  
And Eve was weak and loosed the raven upon the world,  
And the raven was called sin.  
-Stephen King, Carrie

 

All Merope knew was that she was cold. She'd woken up with a persistent backache and the realization that she'd run out of money; she'd just spent her last night in the only room she could find to rent.

She'd walked until the cheapest café she knew was open, and spent her last few coins on a bowl of stew. It was watery and what little meat was in it was tough and stringy, but it was hot, and she made it last as long as she could. They'd hardly let her stay once she was no longer a paying customer, after all, and she couldn't buy anything else.

 

That was when Merope realised it wasn't just a backache that was plaguing her.

 

She'd swear that she could feel the blood drain from her face. She'd seen her mother in labor more than once, screaming and thrashing only to birth a tiny corpse, or a pitiful sickly creature with barely the strength to mewl fretfully for half an hour or so before slipping into merciful stillness. And every year she'd grown weaker, until Merope had received that curt message at the start of her fifth year telling her she was needed at home, as her mother could no longer maintain the household. It wasn't until she'd gotten home that she found that her mother was already dead.

 

Merope knew that she was cold. The snow was making it hard to see. The only place she could think to go was the address on the card the woman had given her. She didn't know what St. Thaïs Refuge was... but a refuge meant a safe place, didn't it?

 

Somehow, she found the address on the card. It was a huge building, all dull grey stone. She banged with all the strength, and almost fell over when the door was yanked open abruptly. The girl who'd opened the door couldn't have been older than Merope herself, but she looked her over with palpable disdain.

 

"You've got the wrong door," she snapped, doubtless trying to sound prim but coming off rather more shrewish.

 

Merope opened her mouth to speak, but could only manage a weak moan, and clutched the doorframe to keep from falling over.

 

"Oh for the love of--- Matron! Matron!" The girl pelted down the hallway, sounding more put-upon than anxious.

 

After that, it was a bit of a blur. Merope wasn't sure how she wound up on a hard, narrow bed in a rather dingy room, with only the scornful-looking girl who'd answered the door for company. She didn't look so much scornful now, though, as disgusted and a little afraid. Every few minutes an older woman would look in on them, but she was stern and silent,

 

Between the pains that robbed her of all breath, Merope tried nervously to talk to her, desperate for distraction, even if it was just the sound of her own voice. It hurt so much, no wonder her mother had thrashed and cried out so. Was she going to die like her mother had? "It's... it's silly, I know... but I'm sure it's a boy, I am."

 

The girl, sitting carefully out of reach, merely looked at her sourly.

 

"If I'm wrong... if it's a girl... I'll call her Marpessa..." She owed her mother that much. "If it's a boy..."

 

Just then, the stern-faced woman swept into the room, in the company of a red-faced man with too little wispy hair trying to cover too much shiny scalp. Merope cringed in shame as he pushed her legs up and further apart.

"Stupid girl!" It took Merope a moment to realize he wasn't addressing her. "Surely you didn't think this much blood was normal?"

 

From then, it grew even more vague. It seemed almost as if she were floating above herself, watching the man doing mysterious and unpleasant things. Another pain that seemed to rend her in two and...

 

"A fine healthy boy, Mrs. West." Glancing at Merope, he shook his head and leaned toward the stern-faced woman, handing her the infant and murmuring something in her ear.

 

"Well, she's the nuns' problem either way now, isn't she?" Mrs. West and the man, whose name she'd not caught, were headed out the door. She turned her head as she walked out. "Sit with her until the sisters come fetch her, Anne."

"But..." A single sharp look silenced her.

 

"Wait..." Merope struggled to sit up."Where are you..." But they were already gone. She turned to the girl... Anne... fighting an overwhelming wave of dizziness. "Where are they taking him?"

 

"To the nursery, you daft cow. Surely you didn't think you'd..."

 

"But I haven't even named him yet!"

 

"Hardly matters what the likes of you would call him, does it?" Anne sneered openly.

 

Despite the light-headed weakness that was overcoming her, Merope was seized by a surge of energy that had nothing do do with physical strength. A surge she'd felt when... no, she wouldn't think of that. She stretched out her arm, and Anne's chair skidded forward just enough for Merope to grab the front of her dress. "He has a name," she spat angrily, staring into the girl's suddenly frightened eyes. "His name is Tom Marvolo Riddle." _For my sins. All of it, my fault..._ "You'll see to it. You'll see that he's not called anything else."

 

Anne, starting to whimper, nodded. Merope released her grip on the girl's dress, leaving a bloody handprint behind, and as the swell of raw power faded, sank back onto the bed, closing her eyes.


	3. "I Knew I Was Not Bound For Heaven"

In a Magdalen asylum with my penitent's dress  
and my baby bouncing on no-body's knee  
My eternal happiness would depend upon  
how well I could renounce nature's ways  
I could never speak my name  
all my work would deepen shame  
and I'd never be acceptable again  
Maighread Medbh, "The Price That Love Denied"

 

It was cold, and a woman was crying. The blanket pulled over her was coarse and scratchy. Merope stirred fitfully, trying to remember where she was and why. She'd been... ill? She had vague memories of being made to sit up and swallow mouthfuls of thin, flavourless gruel. People coming and going, hushed conversations; hadn't she heard screaming at one point? Or had it been her own screams? She sat up carefully, trying to figure out why she was so stiff and sore.

 

The thin crying from across the room broke off in an abrupt gasp, and a whisper. "You're awake. They didn't think you'd wake. Didn't think... oh, I shouldn't be saying that sort of thing!" Looking over at her, Merope noticed with surprise that the young woman's hair had been shorn to the very skin, and none too gently either; dried blood was crusted over several long scratches. "I'm..." She looked down, seeming almost ashamed. "I'm called Hilda." She gave Merope a nervous smile, keeping her voice low. "Everyone's been curious about you. They never tell us anything. All anyone knows is--" She shut her mouth with a near-audible snap, gaze dropping. "Saint Thaïs, lead all sinners to the path of penance and peace," she said hastily.

 

"Amen. Gossiping already, Hilda?" Merope looked up at the new speaker. Another woman, this one in some sort of heavy robes with a stiff headdress, and there was something in her smile that made Merope uneasy.

 

"No, Sister Columba." There was a faint tremor in Hilda's voice.

 

"Good. I would hate to think you'd require further correction so soon, or that you'd try to spread your wickedness to our newest arrival." She walked toward Merope, assessing her coldly as she sat on the edge of the bed. "You've been quite a bit of bother already. The doctor didn't think you'd last the night. Well," stepping to the very edge of the bed, she smiled complacently. "it only goes to show that a doctor isn't the highest authority, does it? Do you know where you are, girl?"

 

"I was... someone gave me an address..."

 

"You're at the Saint Thaïs Refuge, child. You seem to be recovering nicely, you should be able to start doing your proper work soon. You came to us on the feast day of St. Melania the Younger... you'll be Melanie among us." At Merope's confused expression, Sister Columba only smiled. "You're here to rid yourself of the sinful life you led before. This is where it begins." She gave Hilda a sharp look as she stood. "And you won't go filling her mind with her seditious nonsense. Food will be sent up to you, and Sister Philomena will be in to look at the pair of you soon enough." She stalked out of the room, heavy skirts trailing behind her.

 

Hilda turned toward her once Sister Columba was safely out of earshot. "Sister Philomena's not so bad. Sister Columba... she's mean, but mostly just talk. It's Sister Pelagia you really have to watch out for. And be careful what you say around Faith; she tells the sisters everything."

 

They were in the infirmary for about three more days. Sister Philomena turned out to be a taciturn woman with gentle hands who checked in on them every day for a cursory examination. Merope tried to hide her shock when she caught a glimpse of the mottled bruises on Hilda's legs. At the uncomfortable way Hilda turned away, Merope knew not to ask.

 

A mousy girl with unevenly braided hair brought them food twice a day; a flavourless, watery gruel and a small glass of milk. She'd been startled the first time she saw Merope awake, although she must have known or she wouldn't have two trays.

 

"She's quiet like you, Catherine," Hilda had said with a cheerful grin. "Don't worry, Melanie. Catherine's all right. Doesn't say much, but then neither do you, so you should get on like a house on fire."

 

"Is it true?" Catherine asked nervously. "Sister Columba said that when she was fevered, instead of raving and yelling, she only hissed." She looked down when she handed Merope her tray.

 

"Hissed like a balloon with a slow leak." Shaking her head, Hilda laughed. "That woman could make the phases of the moon sound sinister. Given the state Melanie was in when they brought her in, the poor girl's throat was probably too sore for much else."

 

Merope blinked. "How... how long have I been here?"

 

Surprisingly, it was Catherine who answered, although she still looked timid, almost flinching. "About a week." Her voice was soft, almost a monotone. "I saw them. The doctor came, when they brought you. Doctor said..." She glanced at Hilda, as if for permission. "Doctor said you wouldn't last the night. You were white as paper. Sister Philomena had Adelaide and I feeding you broth with a sponge... well, Adelaide and I, until..."

 

"Until I made my brave but futile escape attempt and she couldn't be spared, right?" Hilda's smile was forced, half a wince.

 

"Escape? Are we... we're not prisoners, are we?" Merope looked from Catherine to Hilda and back, bewildered.

 

"Not technically. Not legally." Hilda's eyes narrowed. "If you've family to come fetch you, well..." She shrugged. "If not, if you've nowhere to go... well, even if you do get out, they'll have you picked up for vagrancy, because you won't have anywhere to you, will you?" Her face grew angrier, wilder, but her voice was flat and empty. With her stubbled head and white nightgown, she certainly looked like a prisoner.

 

A few days later, Sister Philomena pronounced them 'well enough', and they were lead into the dormitories. Hilda, still limping slightly, kept her head down and expression blank. Merope bowed her head in imitation, but took cautious peeks around. The same words were carved over every doorway--

 

_Saint Thaïs, lead all sinners to the path of penance and peace. Amen._


	4. "This Heartless Place"

Prostitutes and destitutes  
And temptresses like me—  
Fallen women—  
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery—  
Why do they call this heartless place  
Our Lady of Charity?  
Joni Mitchell, "The Magdalene Laundries"

 

The days were all the same. Hilda pointed out the other girls to her; Faith, with her golden curls and big blue eyes and the port-wine stain neatly bisecting her face; Winifred, who never spoke; Catherine with her pretty smile and nervous stammer; Adelaide, weary-eyed, who'd spent half her life behind the high stone walls of the Refuge; Cecilia, singing more often than speaking. She warned her which of the Sisters to be especially wary of, and to never let down her guard around any of them.

 

The dormitory was as cheerless as the infirmary had been, and so were the women who spent their nights there. Winifred, at fourteen, was the youngest; Adelaide was the eldest, looking to be somewhere in her forties. It was hard to tell, here. There was no sun or wind to weather the skin, only hard work to redden and coarsen their hands.

 

And hard work was what filled their days, scrubbing linens with lye soap harsh enough to make their skin peel, or using the heavy presses to iron the endless tide of sheets flat and smooth. Merope usually worked the press next to dark-haired Cecilia.

 

It was the rule that they were to work in silence, but some of the sisters were stricter. Sister Philomena was most lenient. Neither Merope nor Cecilia spoke much, but when Sister Philomena was supervising them, Cecilia would sing.

 

"What did you promise me when you lay beside me  
You said you'd marry me and not deny me  
If I said I'd marry you, 'twas only to try you  
So bring your witness, love, and I'll not deny you

Oh, witness I have none, save God Almighty  
And may he reward you well for the slighting of me  
Her lips grew pale and wan; her heart did tremble  
For to think she'd had one love, and he proved deceitful."

 

All of her songs were like that, or worse. Merope was glad of that. She didn't think she could bear any cheerful love songs.

 

 

When first I deserted, I thought myself free  
Until my cruel comrade informed against me

-"The Deserter", traditional

 

Hilda's hair was almost grown to her shoulders when she tried to escape again. Merope was awakened by the sounds of screaming, and the dull thuds that she had come to recognize as the sound of a leather strap hitting flesh.

 

She had a few welts herself. Sister Columba did not overlook even the smallest infractions.

 

Eventually Sister Ursula and Sister Thecla dragged Hilda back into the dormitory. Even in the dim room Merope could see that her newly-shorn head was bleeding sluggishly in half a dozen places.

 

"What happened?" Merope whispered, after the Sisters had dumped her unceremoniously on the bed and stalked out.

 

Hilda was coughing, and her voice was rough. "That filthy slag Faith..." she hissed, taking care to keep her voice too low to carry. "Must have seen me slipping out. Of course she'd turn copper's nark on me... Well, I'll just have to do her one better, won't I?"

 

Merope was afraid to ask what she meant.

 

As it was, she hadn't long to wait. It was another long day in the laundry. With Sister Columba keeping watch, Cecilia kept her head bowed, silent as they all were meant to be.

 

Until the screams started.

 

Everything seemed to happen at once. Winifred dropped to the floor, bucking and thrashing. When Sister Columba knelt beside her with an exasperated sigh, Adelaide grabbed her from behind, slapping a hand over her mouth. But the real commotion was across the room, where Hilda had thrust Faith face-down into one of the tubs of harsh lye soap, and was holding her under.

 

It seemed like forever, but it couldn't have lasted a minute. Sister Columba wrenched free of Adelaide's grasp and pulled Hilda back, throwing her against the wall, and screamed at Catherine to fetch Sister Philomena as she dragged Faith out of the bucket of soap.

 

The next few days were nothing but confusion. Hilda laughing as the police lead her off in handcuffs. Winifred (still silent) and Adelaide wearing their shorn heads like badges of pride. Faith's eyes bandaged, the Sisters whispering about if she'd get her sight back.

 

Merope began sleeping more, after that. At first it was just sluggishness in the mornings. Then she had to be dragged out of bed. The day she slid to the floor, inert, while working the press was the day they moved her to the infirmary. She barely noticed.

 

Doctors came and went, using terms like 'narcolepsy', 'encephalitis lethargica' and 'catatonic stupor' in hushed terms. She barely noticed.

 

They moved her from her bed in the Saint Thaïs Refuge to a bed in the back ward of a hospital. She barely noticed.

Merope slept.

 

Merope slept for a long time.


	5. "In That Dream Of Death"

In 1943, Merope dreams.

She had never seen the room before, but the taste in furnishings was familiar. There were three people sitting in matched uncomfortable-looking chairs, none of them young, none of them familiar, although it seemed she should... someone's uncle? It wouldn't hold still in her mind. She could tell they were speaking, but their voices were muffled, garbled as if they were under water, or she were.

 

When the door swung open all three looked up in shock, expressions communicating as clearly as their unintelligible words could.

 

The man who entered, she did recognize. Or did she? Hadn't Tom's chin been a bit weaker, his teeth a little straighter? But when he spoke, she could hear him, and his voice was Tom's.

 

"Did you think you could forget me forever?"

 

Then he raised his wand, and Merope knew who he was. Something inside her twisted painfully.

 

"I don't think I'm interested in what you have to say." He was trying to sound flippant, and very nearly succeeded. He did make the wave of his wand that hexed all three of them still and silent look casual, almost careless. He pulled a yellowed sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolding it. "You've made yourself quite clear already. Did you think they didn't keep files, that I'd never see this?" His voice was cold as he read, but the slightest bit shaky. " 'Whatever that girl said, the brat's not mine. Take your begging elsewhere, you'll get nothing from me.' " Without a word, he burned the paper to ash. "Succinct, but thorough." He raised his wand, and her vision went green.

 

Merope whimpers in her sleep, but no-one notices.

 

 

In 1947, a new nurse comes to work at the hospital. She hears that 'Melanie-No-Last-Name-Given' has been a patient for at least ten years, catatonic the whole time, and seemed not to have aged a day.

The nurse is a half-blood, and can guess at what might be happening. It's happened before. Unwilling to interfere, she simply casts a glamour on Merope, making her easy to forget, easy to ignore.

 

In 1981, Merope dreams.

 

The moon was full. The moon was full and shimmering green, and somewhere a woman was screaming.

 

A shape formed on the moon, an unfamiliar sigil formed of skull and serpent.

 

A louder, wilder scream, and the moon shattered, splitting into quarters, crumbling into shards, tumbling from the sky.

 

Merope opens her eyes.


End file.
